Printer Friendly Version - Two Families, Two Countries, Connected Through the Generations

Jack Kaiser and Jason Contal’s families have known each other for three generations, beginning when Jack’s mother was a high school exchange student in France. Over a span of nearly four decades, members of each family have traveled back and forth from Clinton’s sandy shore to the pebbled beaches of Nice. Photo by Elaine Kaiser

Though the number of American exchange students has more than tripled in the last two decades, studying abroad is still relatively uncommon among undergrads—and even less so among high school kids.

In summer of 1979, Morgan School junior Elaine Kaiser and her brother, John, traveled to France as exchange students with an organization called North Atlantic Cultural Exchange (now Nacel Open Door), they were definitely the exception, not the rule.

At the time, the language department at Morgan was expanding, which was good news for Kaiser, who was keenly interested in foreign languages and cultures.

“Mr. Basilica, an Italian teacher, was one of my French teachers,” she recalled. “I was always impressed by the fact that he spoke multiple languages, and he inspired me to learn more.”

A new teacher had joined the faculty, too, and focused on advanced language courses.

“Olga Mussachio had just started at Morgan and was excellent. She was energetic and connected with the students so well.”

Now retired, Musacchio celebrated her 70th birthday last month—an occasion the Kaiser family was invited to share in.

The family has also stayed in touch, through the generations, with many of their host families as well as exchange students they’ve hosted themselves.

The summer after Elaine and John traveled to France, the families they stayed with came to visit the Kaisers in Clinton.

“It’s a relationship that continues to this day,” said Kaiser, “spanning almost four decades.”

This summer, 37 years after her first stay with the Contal family in France, Elaine has opened her home to her French hosts’ grandson, Jason, for his very first visit to the United States.

Jason, 14, is from Nice, a coastal town in the south of France where Bastille Day—July 14—is celebrated with fireworks on the beach.

“Just two years ago, my son, husband, and I were at the beach in Nice watching the fireworks with Jason and his family,” Kaiser said. “This year, he got to watch our Fourth of July fireworks in New York.”

Jason also saw the Statue of Liberty, which Kaiser said is especially exciting for French students who’ve learned in school about the statue being a gift from their country to ours.

“He’s having a wonderful time in the United States. He loves all the trees here and how green things are and how big everything is. He visited Lake Compounce and Boston, and he finds the Clinton and Madison shorelines breathtaking. He loves hamburgers at Cristy’s in Madison and Westbrook, and is practically a food critic comparing the two places!”

Like a typical American kid, Jason likes barbecue sauce (“He puts it on everything”) and Xbox, which he’s used to stay in touch with his family and friends back home.

Reaching out to his loved ones became critically important on July 14—a national holiday in France, and one that was marred by news of a terrorist attack in his hometown. Eighty-four people were killed and hundreds more injured after the driver of a cargo truck plowed through a crowded Bastille Day celebration on Nice’s Promenade des Anglais.

“It was a strange experience to be sitting next to him in the car listening to the radio when the news came over,” Kaiser said. “I didn’t want to concern him, so initially I didn’t want to tell him what happened, especially since I didn’t know if his mother was OK. They live and work minutes from the beach.”

Kaiser knew that between social networks like Twitter and mobile and image messaging like Snapchat and WhatsApp, it was only a matter of time before Jason heard the news, so she decided to call his mother’s house to see if she was OK.

“I said I was going to wish her a happy Bastille Day. I’m sure he thought I was crazy calling her around 11 p.m.”

As it turned out, his mother had been sleeping soundly and had no knowledge of the terrorist attack until Kaiser’s call.

“Can you imagine that we would know before someone living only a few blocks away?”

Fortunately Jason’s loved ones were spared, and he has stayed in touch with them via Xbox, Kaiser said.

“Such a different world. When I was 15, I went alone to Germany without knowing much German. The experience was so much different than these days. When you left for an overseas experience, you really left. You left your family, your home, your community, your language, without being able to call home or email or Facetime or anything.”

While that could be difficult, Kaiser said, it was also an adventure and a learning experience. With no one to share her native tongue, and no technology to connect with those who did, being away from home forced her to immerse herself in the language of her host country.

Not only did Kaiser travel as a student, but her family also hosted young people from around the globe.

“Our home always had an open door to international students. My mother would bring us all to interesting places like New York and Boston and Washington, D.C. I fondly remember one summer where we had half a dozen students staying at our home. Some still come over for Christmas, now with their own children. It’s all because of my amazing mother, Irene, who always made nice meals and kept the house so clean and welcoming to exchange students. We had so much fun with everyone.”

Eventually, so many students were coming that the Kaisers prevailed upon friends to take in some of them.

“Before you knew it, my mother was responsible for nearly 30 French students. She put Clinton on the map.”

Now that Elaine Kaiser is grown with a son of her own, she said, “It’s such an incredible feeling to meet the children of my host brothers and sisters. It’s a bit like a time warp going back and reliving all the experiences when you were still bright-eyed and thinking about your future. Understanding people from difference cultures makes for such a rewarding life experience.”

She and her husband, Reese Hutchison, along with son Jack, have kept the tradition of traveling and hosting alive.

“We’re now having the next generation do the exchanges. My son attended Haddam-Killingworth schools, where over the years he introduced the HK community to kids visiting from Cuba, France, China, Germany, and Japan. He’s now a student at Wilbraham & Monson Academy, where there are students from around the world. It’s a bit like a mini United Nations. What’s really fun for me is the hope that Jack will stay in touch with the next generation, and who knows? Maybe their grandchildren will do an international exchange.”